It is a criminal offence to not register.

> It is a criminal offence to not register.

Afaik that is not correct. It is a criminal offence to refuse to complete the registration form or to give false information. But if you're not asked ro register then no offence is committed.

I stand corrected, they are generally rather persistent in asking though ...

Which is rather amusing, as my partner, a Chinese national, is regularly hounded to register, despite not being eligible to do so (and in fact, would be committing an offense if she tried).

Apparently you must register to vote. You can opt out of the extended register. [1]

Not being on the electoral register is a huge pain too. It affects your credit quite significantly.

[1] https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500328/voting/6470/regist...

I'm registered to vote, but because I don't live at my last UK address since leaving the country over 10 years ago, I can confirm: it's a factor in a bad credit rating.

> It affects your credit quite significantly.

I dont care, I closed my bank accounts because I dont like the way the banks share data with credit agencies. One of the reasons why I stopped using crypto.

Privacy is massively undervalued. :)

I'm glad you're in a position to not need a bank account. Unfortunately the vast majority of us rely on having a bank account and a credit record to exist in society.

You can argue that it sucks, and I'd partly agree, but that is how society works right now.

Privacy is undervalued, I agree. But I also like having a roof over my head and a way for my employer to give me money each month.

I would live on the streets but everything is owned by someone or something so you become incarcerated by different entities against your will. Violence always wins. And we can only suicide for free, euthanasia costs money.

Life is intelligent slavery now, more psychological than physical, and way more stealth than most people realise.

Anyway don't worry about me you have yours and your loved ones backs to watch and your grown up toys to worry about. Nothing has changed in thousands of years.

This is me, do you believe the police? Cambridge police saw me not far from the train station, USAF staff also asked if I wanted a lift somewhere in the best trolling manner possible. https://www.facebook.com/norfolkpolice/photos/a.296009593089...

The UK down plays its surveillance as its best to not wake the population up plus its a stealth form on entrapment, illegal in the UK and it also provides a facility for deniable ops like murders.

It doesnt look like it is a criminal offence but when I tried to remove myself the option wasnt there, so I changed the name. I could remove other people on the system.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/6/section/5/enacte...

Maintenance of registers: invitations to register in Great Britain

(1)A registration officer in Great Britain must give a person an invitation to apply for registration in a register maintained by the officer if—

(a)the officer is aware of the person’s name and address,

(b)the person is not registered in the register, and

(c)the officer has reason to believe that the person may be entitled to be registered in the register.

It isn't a criminal offence. It's a civil penalty that can be levied if they require you to register and you don't.

The legislative text (it's an amending regulation—think a diff—but the underlying statute hasn't been updated on Legislation.gov.uk yet) is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/en/uksi/2013/3198/regulation/...

The Electoral Commission's guidance - https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/running-electoral-reg...

I can't find any reports of people actually receiving the penalty. It'd certainly be useful if the Electoral Commission collected these statistics, but they don't. It seems fairly rare, and it's likely to be one of those things that's there to encourage people to register to vote rather than something to be actively enforced.

I'd also note that given there is a requirement for an in-person home visit to encourage registration before service a formal notice, it's pretty likely that COVID restrictions and guidance meant quite a lot of the home visits didn't happen over the last few years.

Leave the country for however long it takes to lose the vote, then upon returning simply forget to register?

Ireland is close, and would probably suffice.

I've a vague memory of it being 7 years, but on checking it seems to be 15.